


the death of ventress

by seraf



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Revenge, WILDLY canon divergent, the culmination of a bunch of plot shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 16:00:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15755043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: ventress finally gets hers - the alpha troopers in a wildly canon divergent verse get revenge; for alpha and for colt.





	the death of ventress

save for mar’e, in brief visits, he hasn’t been off kamino in years, so the tatooine air almost claws at his throat, dry and arid. sure, there were heat-sims they did where they’d run the usual courses but with the conditioned air turned hot enough to bake them in their armor, but it didn’t really prepare you for a world built around living in that.

nobody spares him a second glance, in mos eisley. he’s wearing mandalorian armor, and bounty hunters abound here, a weapon on every hip or slung across backs or straight up in hand. while he watched, there was a brief confrontation, between a masked bounty hunter and a disgruntled agent of one of the hutts, and a moment later, the latter was sprawled over the bar, bleeding out from a long gash across his throat, cut as easily as tearing paper.

the bartender didn’t even pause what he was doing, barking something out in an unfamiliar language to the bounty hunter, who tossed over a couple credits and slung the body over their shoulder, downing the rest of their drink along with their victim’s, before heading out.

the bartender just shifted, used the same dirty rag he’d been cleaning the bar with before to mop up the blood. over the comms, neb laughs.

‘ it’s huttese, ‘ he explains. ‘ picked up some of it from one of the non-mando cuy’val dar, mostly expletives. he was pissed because the guy that hunter killed hadn’t paid for his drink yet. ‘

alpha snorts, shaking his head, still leaning against the wall.

watching, waiting.

she was on her fourth shot, staring at the holoscreen like it had personally offended her with a low glower. wordlessly, she downed it, the bartender handing her a fifth before she even asks for it, getting a grunt of thanks in return.

dooku was dead. and now, so was his puppetmaster.

she had taken a vengeful kind of spite in watching that, again and again on every shitty holofeed in bars across tatooine; even here, it was relevant. certainly it mattered _less,_ here, but still – the hutts, the other slavers, had no guarantee that whoever the chancellor’s replacement was wouldn’t actively start crushing their main source of income.

ventress didn’t care what happened.

she was past the republic, and past the seperatists, and no longer a pawn in some sith lord’s game.

( there _were_ no sith anymore, she noted with a cold satisfaction. she had been dooku’s hope for continuing his lineage, his legacy into the sith, and she had rejected that. not a sith, not a jedi, and better than the both of them. )

she tosses a handful of credits across the bar, setting down her fifth empty shotglass, and stands, stalking out of the seedy bar – someone wolf-whistles, and without even looking back, her fist curls, the perpetrator suddenly gagging as an invisible hand crushes his windpipe, holds him in the air until stars swim before his eyes, gasping as he tumbles to the ground.

no, she was no sith or jedi, but she wasn’t a fool, either. if their tricks helped her, why lose them?

these bars were packed. if something shifted in the shadows as she left, she paid it no mind. she was nobody anymore. why should she care what some third-rate criminal wanted?

alpha’s fingers twitch, and a gun cocks, somewhere on a rooftop.

even after having come here for awhile, she flinches at the glare of twin suns, hand shielding her face and scowling, blinking a few times to adjust – and something flashes. she cries out, dropping to one knee as her hand presses to her thigh, red stark against her pale skin.

blood – and she scans the rooftops furiously.

 _not a blaster bolt. slugthrowers._ had jango turned against her? what could he stand to gain from that? gritting her teeth, she ducks behind a sandstone pillar, as another shot grazes her right arm, a third slug nicking the pillar she had just ducked behind in time, her lightsabers drawn reflexively.

they wouldn’t be of any use against the weapons they were using, of course, but it was second nature to her at this point, the red glow lighting up the shadow cast by the stone awnings of the buildings in the square, pedestrians all pulling to the sides of the road, curses slung up at the rooftops. shoot-outs weren’t uncommon here, per se, but they were certainly a fucking inconvenience.

she’s scanning the rooftops, and makes out – there, the flash of a muzzle, gone as soon as it came, the owner realizing to compensate for the glint of both suns, and she begins plotting her course up there. she could use that shooter as a human shield, get to her ship before the others – if there _were_ others – managed to get a clean shot off at her.

she ducks from behind one pillar to the next, swift enough that the slugs don’t catch her, cursing with a vengeance up at the shooter on the roof, and prepares to move again when the force warns her of something, and she turns, her side grazing the blade that had been held to her back as she moves, and she grits her teeth, looking at the wielder.

a man in mandalorian armor. _had_ jango betrayed her, then?

her feet slide into position as easily as breathing, twin sabers taking on the defensive, her back against the pillar – not her choice, to be pinned against a wall, but she would make do. ‘ fett, ‘ she purred, voice deep as ever, her smile more a baring of teeth than anything else. ‘ to what do I owe the honor? I thought our deal was settled. ‘

‘ ‘m no fett, ‘ comes the reply from underneath the helmet, and ventress just raises one tattooed brow, wondering if it would be worth it to just choke the man and try and move on. still, the shooting had stopped for now, so she would take her chances as they came. ( she was studying the armor for gaps, already planning where to aim. the throat seemed like the best choice, perhaps. though she might just make short work of it and aim for his knees, sever them there. )

‘ no? ‘ she muses. ‘ pity, i almost thought you were someone worth – ‘ and her voice cuts off, head tipping to the side as she notes something familiar about the mandalorian’s armor. the symbol on his shoulder, done in the color of rust – not the color in which she had seen it originally, but.

and she _laughs._

 

 

‘ you’re a clone, aren’t you? ‘ she asks of her would-be killer, her smile turned smug around the edges, and in response, the mando tugs off his helmet, revealing a grim version of jango fett’s face, hair close-cropped and eyes darker than his progenitors.

a scarred face, too. her smile grew delighted, seeing them – she had put them there, after all.

a pale hand reaches out, cradles his face. ‘ alpha-17, working with general kenobi, wasn’t it? ‘ she asks languidly. or – it’s what she means to do. she reaches to his face, getting as far as ‘working with – ‘, and alpha’s arm moves in a swift arc, beskar blade humming in the air, and she’s left staring at her own hand, now short three fingers, and her face turns to a snarl of rage.   
  
her good fist curls, alphas feet lifting off the ground an inch as she cuts his air off from him, her teeth ground together – but he has her hand, still, and he digs his nail into the bleeding stump of one of her fingers, and she cries out, her concentration lost, dropping alpha to his feet, and when she’s able to stand upright again, there is the tip of a sword, unshaking, balanced right along her pale throat.

‘ i see, ‘ she says, her eyes narrowing. how could she get out of this?

she smiles again, remembering something.

‘ i challenge you, ‘ she says, her voice almost singing, resting her good fingertips on the flat of the mandalorian blade, meeting alpha’s own dark eyes, cold with a settled fury. ‘ by the own code of your people, you have to accept, correct? ‘

alpha stares at her for a long moment and then grunts assent, sheathing his blade and jerking his head towards the sunny street, where they can have more space. she doesn’t follow him, arms crossing. ‘ do you really think i’m stupid? if i step out there, your brothers will put one of those rounds into my back. you can’t use them. ‘

‘ then you can’t use the force, ‘ he says, levelly, and she pauses, teeth grinding for a moment, but what else can she do?

( she considered making a run for it back through the bar, but – there’s someone standing there now, in clone armor, and seeing her looking, he ignites – a lightsaber? the hilt is almost too small for his hand, and the blade is a dark purple. she has no doubt that if she checks the other nearby buildings, she’ll find much the same thing. )

‘ deal, ‘ she grinds out, through her teeth, and they step out into the sunny street, paved by no more than sand and years of foot traffic.

alpha flicks a hand signal, and he must have conveyed it to the other clones somehow, because there’s no shot as she crosses into the road, breathing and focusing to stop the pain from her existing injuries. not, now, to avenge her master, like it might once have been, but to prove that she was _better._ dooku had fallen to jango.

dooku’s legacy would not fall to jango’s. she would make certain of that.

‘ glad you’re a man of your word, alpha-17, ‘ she says, one lightsaber ignited and in her good hand, her wounded one curled to her chest. she would make him pay for that. she remembers that he didn’t yield to torture, yes, but she also remembers the few spots that made him cry out, when she dug deep enough with the knife. she would claw them out of him with her hands, when she was done.

they take their place, alpha’s stance unyielding, his feet planted firmly. she remembers the blades from when jango had used them; she knows they will match her own saber blow-for-blow. she laughs almost to herself. it will be their honor that does them in, really. she’s confident she can win this.

she is better than her master, and alpha is an inferior version of his creator. bigger or no, in the end, they’re just clones, and she’s killed hundreds of them, at this point in the war.

she begins to lunge forwards, feet finding purchase in the rough cobblestones some of the streets have, and her back explodes in pain, a slug finding its own purchase solidly beneath one of her shoulderblades, cracking right through one of her ribs.

she lands face-first at alpha’s feet, and he kicks her shoulder, turns her over, boot planted on her chest.

it strikes her then, that she’s going to die.

‘ no honor for the honorless, ‘ alpha-17 says, in a voice like steel, low and calm, and she tries to shove him back with the force, but he’s stepping down again, hard, pressing sand and grit into her wound.

the mandalorian iron rings true as it swings through the air.

 

minutes later, the crowd in mos eisley is swelling around the road again, as it always does, this time avoiding the pool of tacky blood drying in the desert sand.

save for that, to them, nothing had changed.


End file.
